Making children work for longer than adults in the workplace!

[dannyac]

Hi all. My son started in year 1 in September and although school is not meant to start until 9 am, his classmates are generally sitting at tables doing spelling practice after drop off, perhaps from 8.30 in some cases.

I don't agree with this as many adults due to start work at 9 wouldn't choose to do so before then!

I try to take him in later but then he
feels that he is on the back foot in terms of settling in or even late bless him.

The head/class teacher is generally doing lesson prep so I wonder if this is just a convenient time-filler being sold as "beneficial for learning". I would rather they were all just running around the playground until it is time to go in like CHILDREN!

I have a meeting with the head on Thursday to discuss it and even suggest a rota of parents to patrol the playground if staffing is an issue.

Does anyone agree with me that working early is wrong?

And with the days getting colder and wetter, the ability for kids to go into their classrooms if they want to is very appealing.

Plus (on a roll) our playground is BEDLAM in the mornings with parents, children, siblings all jostling for space while kids try and get in lines.

Ds1 finds it freaky (though is fine during proper playtimes). Dd is in year 6 and would welcome the opportunity for settling in peacefully in her classroom with her classmates.

if only dd3 school did this. that would save me £20 a week on breakfast club fees as I struggle to drop 3 kids at two different schools at opposite ends of town. if I could drop her off at 8.30, and know she was supervised In a classroom I would happily do it. I might then just about get to dd2+4's school just as the bell went.

pooka That is what they used to do at my old school where I was Deputy Head, it was quite a deprived area and so the head did a lot to help parents cut costs of before/after school care and to improve academics.
In KS1, they would only have to do reading at home for homework, or could do this with the parent in the classroom before school if the parent was able to. In KS2 they did have homework, but just two small tasks- they had to do one task at home each night and then left one task to do during morning wake up time e.g. learn spellings or times tables.
In the morning there was the option to come in anytime between 8:20 and 8:40. In KS1, reading could be done in one corner of the classroom with your child (some parents 'adopted' another child whose parent wasn't able to stay and hadn't had time to read with their DC the night before) and in the rest of the room the children settled quickly to a very specific and routine task e.g. a few sums on the board in year 1, cutting out a shape in reception, practicing writing letters. In KS2 it was a similar set-up but no parents came in and they would just get straight on with their left over homework task.

It worked so well and made a huge difference to the parents mornings, the children's mornings and standards generally. It was such a calm way to start the day and much more effective than sending lots of homework tasks home. In KS1 between 8:50 and 9 any parents who had stayed to do reading had to leave the reading corner and all children did the set 'warm up' (not HOMEwork!) task.

Dalmatiandots - that sounds fabulous! My one bugbear with our school is that we never really go into the classroom as parents unless we volunteer chunks of time during the day. I would love the opportunity to be able to actually settle ds in in a relaxed way and also just to see dd's classroom environment.

I don't understand what your problem is. This is optional.

If you don't want your child to do it, don't take him into school early.

Have you thought about moving to a Steiner school ?

I have a similar set up in my own classroom. I am always in my classroom by 8:15 and students can come in from that time. They can choose to read, work on their homework, eat their breakfast, use the computers to do various tasks, work on their projects, etc. The students tend to settle better once the bell does go. I am not teaching during this time, I'll be setting up activities, and it also gives parents time to speak to me about anything so they're not interrupting actual teaching time. It helps parents out because they don't need to pay for a couple of hours before school care when they may only need an extra ten minutes to be able to get to work on time. Gives me the chance to see some parents that I wouldn't otherwise be able to as well. I don't get paid for this btw, and I don't officially start work until 8:30, so your argument about people not starting work early is pretty invalid.

Honestly OP, if you go up to the school and complain about this you will not only get the reputation as "that" parent very early on in your schooling, but you risk angering a lot of parents that may need that early drop off to get to work or get other children to their own schools. No one is forcing you to drop your child off early if you don't think he can cope with a bit of extra spelling practice. Just supervise him yourself in the playground. Why ruin it for anyone else?

Completely agree, expecting the teacher to supervise and provide activities, up to half an hour before the day starts is outrageous. That time is really important for briefing your TA, setting up activities, finding out any last minute changes, talking to parents etc etc.

That was your point right? Cos thats the only thing I can see wrong here.

I'm clearly in the minority, but I agree with the OP to a certain extent.

I hadn't realised that our school was unusual in doing this, but our (state) primary opens its gates at 8.30, there is a second gate where parents leave their children, who go into the playground to meet their friends and run round and play. The playground is supervised by a staff member (very often the headteacher).

The bell goes at 8.45, at which time the children line up and go into their classrooms ready to start lessons at about 9.

Although the official school start time is 8.45, the headteacher positively encourages children to arrive from 8.30, as she feels that it is important that children have time to run round, meet friends, and play for a few minutes before going in for lessons.

budgiegirlbob. My son needs a good 15 minutes play time to run off energy before school, I allow him to do this. But that is what works for me in my situation, Im open to the fact that others need to be at work by 9am, other children benefit from a quiet classroom to settle before the whole class comes in, and some may have other children to take to different schools. The set up in the OP meets all of these individual needs so why ask for it to change? There is no one size fits all and its selfish to expect it to change to fit one individuals needs.

If I were you I'd be counting my blessings. My DD's school has stopped letting them go in a few minutes early when it's pouring with rain because this would be "added teaching time"! It sounds like your school has a fantastic set up and my mind boggles that you'd want to disrupt it.

my2bundles, I agree that there is no 'one size fits all'. It just seems a shame that there is no opportunity at OPs school for to run round before school formally starts, unless parents are able to stay to supervise this.
That said, there is no opportunity for children at my DCs school to go into the classroom early, unless its raining.

Nothings perfect, I guess!

Sounds a great idea. Can't believe anyone would complain about this - although I think it must be hard on the teachers as presumably that is time they need for preparing lessons etc rather than supervising children.

Can't bear all this 'children are only children' talk - there is still plenty of time after school and at weekends for relaxing, playing sitting in front of the PS/Xbox etc etc.

And many studies show that our children are still amongst the lowest in the world for basic numeracy & literacy skills on leaving school. Some employers are having to teach school leavers basic skills before they can start working .

I also think it's sad that OP believes no adult would work for an extra 20 minutes if he or she arrived early. If you enjoy your job and/or take pride in it, why wouldn't you? If you'd rather do something else, fair enough, but should the default be that working is something people only do on sufferance? And should the message to our children be that you shouldn't be working, or learning, unless you have to?

I agree with you OP, that the school day is too long and I feel that formal schooling starts too early in Britain (another debate). However, I also know that we are in the minority. Shorter school days are only feasible if adult working hours are also shorter than they currently are. We now have a culture of working longer hours and that is not likely to change in the near or even distant future. It's a shame. Long working hours does not mean increased productivity and long school hours does not mean that our children will be more numerate or literate. Interestingly, Germany has shorter working hours and their workers are apparently more productive. Similarly, in Finland, Children do not start formal education, I think until age 7 and the Finnish Education system reguarly tops the international educational league tables. My own view is that we either go with the flow, or find a different school. I choose to go with the flow because my child loves his school and as he gets older, doesn't seem to mind the long days as much as I do (and even I am getting used to it!).

Mrsdarlingwenttotown: I am German, worked for 8 years in Germany for 37.5hr/week.

Here in the UK, similar job, I only work 35hr/week. so I save each day 1/2hr. This is office work. What is different is that you normally have flexi-time by default unless you do shift work. You have a time frame to come and go and as long as the work is done and desks and phones are covered you can be very flexible. So you can work longer and take the time off later, you work shorter days for 2 days but longer for 3 etc.

Also offices start a lot earlier, when I work in Germany I am in my office at 8am and often not the first one. So people can leave earlier or start late. When I am on the phone to our parent company in Germany I often reach colleagues after 5pm.

Don't compare German education with English one. Yes children start late but then go to school for 5-6 lessen a 45 min with 2 small breaks of 15 min. They have homework each day from 6 years onwards. I actually think my DD would benefit now from a more structured German schooling than the topic based English one which starts at 8.55am, has an assembly each day, long lunch, 2 playtimes and ends at 3.15pm.

Noramum - thank you for giving more detailed information about how it works in Germany. I guess, I am talking about the long hours that are worked in professions such as Law in the UK, which can literally be round the clock. Also, I was not comparing the German system with the English one but with the Finnish one (which probably also has long hours!). The point is that 'formal learning' in Finland starts late. My view is that children are better equiped to deal with a longer more intense days when they are older. My DS is summer born and started school two weeks after he turned 4. He has had homework since the age of 5 in year 1). He is now in year 3 and currently starts school as at 8.30 and finishes at 4pm. The point of my first post was to reassure the OP, that I too felt like her but if her child does not mind going in early to do spellings then she should not worry too much about it, especially as there is very little that can be done about it. The system is what it is and the best thing that we can do is support our children.

OP I don't see why this is a problem, its better than children who are early having no choice but to wait in the playground, even if its cold/wet.

DD's school lets children in at 8.30, the children in the lower years then get to practise handwriting, colour, read or play, the older children can read or practise spellings and timestables or stay out in the playground, (this includes the preschool children so from 3 years old up) lessons start at 9am and they finish at 3.15 (3.45 for year 5 and 6). With breaks that's hardly longer than a working day

mrsdarlingwenttotown: I know you talked about Finland but the issue is more or less the same in Germany where friend's DCs started this year, just short of 6. One was actually pulled forward, she could have started a year later, nearly 7.

I agree that it is better to start late as the mental capabilities are better and children learn faster. I think a German child learn in 1 year what an English child learns in 2. But don't forget that even in Finland (or Germany) children attend pre-school more regularly than here, often each day for several hours. This is not about "going back to work and I need childcare" but the knowledge that such a setting improves the school learning. This concept is lacking strongly here in the UK.

Working in law: I had to laugh, sorry. We currently work on a deal where a German law company provides part of the documents. I get late email on such a regular basis that I suspect the lawyer works from home or has a bed in his office :-)

I am actually astonished that it happens

In our school, and most I know, the kids are in playground. Parents are expected to stay for KS1 kids until they go in and KS2 are allowed to run around in the playground. Playground is not open until 8:30, before that you must pay for breakfast club (although only 50p per day)

bell goes, kids line up and are collected by teacher.

I am very surprised the teachers do it, as they then have a problem, if they need to go to the photocopier/loo/pick up a resource from the cupboard/have a quick word with another teacher etc etc, they can't actually do it as they are committed to the classroom from when the first child comes in.

It sounds to me as if the school is offering a nice option to parents who have to drop off on the way to work, it allows them to drop off at 8:30 instead of 8:50/9:00 which can just make all the difference.

I suspect you will be unpopular if you change it.

I have just noticed op that you said no adult would work the extra 20 minutes if they arrived early.

when I was teaching, my contract said I had to be there 15 minutes before day started, so the teacher in your dcs clas, who has been there since before 8, has set up the class and is now letting the kids come in 20 minutes before the day begins - is she/he not working that 20 minutes having arrived early...

My DD's school has a similar set up to the OP and I think it is a good idea. They originally started it to try to avoid problems with idiot parents blocking drives of nearby houses when they all arrived at the same time and couldn't possibly park a few minutes walk away (rant over...) Sometimes we get to school early and DD does some extra reading or writing, other times we run in just as the register is being taken.

Then again when I am at work (on maternity leave at the moment) I generally get to the office half an hour early. I don't hang around outside until my official start time. I go in, make a cup of tea and get on with it!

Noramum: Yes, I agree that there are better pre-school arrangements in countries with a later school starting age. It just seems a longer and gentler introduction to school and learning.